Harvard’s Ruth R. Wisse, author of The Modern Jewish Canon, bridges Yiddish and American culture, literature and politics, and Israel and the diaspora. Her latest book, No Joke, applauds spontaneous Jewish wit as well as comic masterworks—from Heine to Roth, Agnon to Babel—but asks readers to consider whether “leave ‘em laughing” is the wisest motto for a people whom others have intended to sweep off the stage of history.

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